-The Economic Times Aadhaar came with a lot of promises. They were brought by some of the brightest in India. Aadhaar promises to remove duplicates and ghosts from government databases, deliver subsidies to beneficiaries, collect taxes, provide financial inclusion and eliminate corruption. Here is why it cannot deliver anything it promises. Aadhaar came with a lot of promises. They were brought by some of the brightest in India. Promise 1: Removing Fraud and Duplicates In...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Niti Aayog, the government's thinktank, has strongly backed taxing of agricultural income above a certain threshold and removal of exemptions on personal income tax as part of a strategy to expand the tax base and prevent evasion. There is a view within the thinktank that the blanket relief on agricultural income was aimed at protecting farmers, but it was being misused by many non-farmers who...

-Hindustan Times Days after Hindustan Times reported a data breach of over a million Aadhaar numbers from a Jharkhand government website, at least four more instances of similar leaks on other government websites have come to light. These breaches come at a time when the Supreme Court is hearing a set of petitions challenging a controversial government decision to make it mandatory to seed Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) with Aadhaar numbers for...

-The Hindu Business Line Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised one crore jobs during the 2014 elections. At the present rate of job creation, this will take 30 years. Muthukumar K and Seetharaman R report on the employment crisis Raj Abraham (name changed on request), a first-year student at a leading management institute in Chennai, is a bit anxious these days. Ask him how his seniors are faring in campus placement and the...

-IndiaSpend.com Kamla Devi (not her real name), of advanced but uncertain age, lives in Lohari, a remote adivasi village located inside a wildlife sanctuary in Udaipur, Rajasthan. On a summer day in 2016, we approached her as she was chasing after a small herd of goats, to ask questions as part of a study on the relation between ageing, paid work and pensions. Our very first question–whether she was a beneficiary of...